【Commentary】Visiting folk artists, innovating the performance form of Northeast Yangge... Over the years, Zhang Wanli, director of the dance department of the School of Music, Dance and Drama of Changchun University of Humanities, has brought Northeast Yangge into college classrooms, so that the "post-00s" can also dance cheerful Yangge, and this traditional culture with regional characteristics has been well inherited.
On March 3, in the dance classroom of the dance department of Changchun University of Humanities, Zhang Wanli and his students changed into training clothes and began to prepare for next month's performance. Before the end of the training, teachers and students also came together on the same stage for an improvisational performance. It can be seen that they love dance deeply and love Northeast Yangge.
As a northern folk dance, Northeast Yangge is very infectious. Born and raised in Changchun, Jilin, Zhang Wanli is an authentic Northeasterner, and she began to learn dance at the age of 6 and forged a lifelong relationship with Northeast Yangge.
【During the same period】Zhang Wanli, director of the dance department of the School of Music, Dance and Drama, Changchun University of Humanities
I started learning dance at the age of 6 when I was in the Chunya Children's Art Troupe of Changchun Mass Art Museum, learning dance from teacher Han Chunmei. As a professional dance artist, Ms. Han deeply explores the ethnic folk dances with the characteristics of Northeast China, the most representative of which is Northeast Yangge. Later, entering a professional dance art college, Northeast Yangge may always accompany the growth process of our dance learning.
【Commentary】In order to better inherit the Northeast Yangge, Zhang Wanli set up a team to visit a number of folk artists, record their performance styles and experiences, and recreate.
【During the same period】Zhang Wanli, director of the dance department of the School of Music, Dance and Drama, Changchun University of Humanities
That is, our roots cannot be lost, so we often follow all the teams and our experts to go down to the grassroots level to Lishu County (Siping City), to Jilin City, and to the cities and counties below to collect and learn traditional Yangge, to grasp this root vein, and then recreate on this basis. In the creative process, how to better express it and make it full of the atmosphere of the times is also the second difficulty we have to overcome.
【Commentary】In 2020, the Changchun University of Humanities Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture (Northeast Yangge) Inheritance Base was approved by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China to establish the purpose of inheriting and promoting the dance form and cultural connotation of Northeast Yangge.
For Zhang Wanli and her team, this is undoubtedly an affirmation and encouragement. She told reporters that now in Changchun College of Humanities, Yangge class has become a public course, and non-dance students can also experience Northeast Yangge for one semester.
Zhang Wanli said that many of her students chose to follow her after graduation, walking into universities and podiums, teaching Northeast Yangge to younger children and injecting more vivid genes into traditional culture.
【During the same period】Zhang Wanli, director of the dance department of the School of Music, Dance and Drama, Changchun University of Humanities
Imperceptibly, (young people's) awareness of traditional culture and the awareness of shouldering the mission of inheritance have also been enhanced, like many of our children who have graduated and employed, some of them also enter primary and secondary schools as teachers, will bring this (inheritance) consciousness in, they will pass on the inheritance of traditional culture from generation to generation, I think this is particularly meaningful.
Reporter Lu Shengnan reported from Changchun
Responsible Editor: [Liu Pai]